Madhubani Mithila Painting Kohbar Women Folk Art Bihar

Madhubani district in Bihar is the geographic home of Mithila painting — a women's visual tradition practised by Brahmin and Kayastha communities (historically in the Brahmin Brahmin style) and Dusadh community (in the Bharni filled-colour style) as ceremonial wall and floor art for rituals including the kohbar (wedding chamber) mural, aripan (floor design), and nuptial paintings of deities Radha-Krishna and Shiva-Parvati. The paintings use natural pigments — turmeric, indigo, lampblack, sindoor, cow dung white — applied on handmade paper, cloth, or mud-plastered walls with bamboo twigs, fingers, and matchsticks, producing bold outlined compositions filled with dense geometric hatching and narrative scenes from Ramayana, Mahabharata, and agricultural cycles. The tradition was documented internationally by Pupul Jayakar and AIACA in the 1960s-70s, after which it transitioned to paper and canvas for commercial export. Mithila painting received a GI tag and is taught in government art schools in Madhubani, Darbhanga, and Janakpur (Nepal), with master painters like Ganga Devi and Sita Devi receiving the Padma Shri for their contribution.